Mr Emmanuel Sasu Yeboah, the Upper West Regional Director of the Food and Agriculture has called for the need to consider introducing grasscutter production into the government’s Rearing for Food and Jobs (RFJ) Programme.

He said livestock farming was a key aspect of agriculture in contributing to food security, source of nutrition, providing employment and income to people.

Mr Yeboah was speaking at a workshop organized by the Ghana Grasscutter Project in Wa on the theme: “Innovations to boost grasscutter production and marketing in the Upper West Region”.

He said grasscutter rearing was less costly since farmers could start with a colony, that is one male and four females in a small confined space and that their food is always derived from grass, which are readily available.

He said grasscutter meat has no any traditional or religious taboos in the region and was a delicacy and the preferred choice of bush meat in most restaurants across the country making it a commodity with ready market for farmers.

Mr Yeboah said the business of producing, processing, transporting, financing will give employment to the youth, decrease importation of frozen meat, affirm the cedi, improve GDP, reduce inflation and create more jobs hence the need to make its production as part of the RFJ programme.

The Ghana Grasscutter Project is funded by the Innovate UK with support from the University of Ghana.

The workshop was attended by selected grasscutter farmers in the Upper West Region, staff of the University of Ghana, Researchers and staff of Kyoto University Japan, Staff of Innovate UK and the project monitoring team in the region.